1672 - Political Events

Political Events

The Treaty of Stockholm signed April 14 pledges Sweden to attack with 16,000 men any German prince who may be disposed to support the Dutch against France's Louis XIV, who agrees to pay the Swedes 400,000 ecus per year in times of peace and 600,000 in case of war. The pact signed by the Swedish regent Count Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie is considered obsequious, but he will retain power for another decade.

A French army of 100,000 men crosses the Rhine without warning and invades the Dutch Republic as Louis XIV acts to punish the Dutch, who have given refuge to his political critics. England's Charles II supports Louis under secret provisions contained in the Treaty of Dover of May 1670. The Royal Navy scores a victory in the Battle of Solebay May 28 at Southwold Bay off Suffolk in the North Sea. The Dutch turn for help to the prince of Orange. The Staats-General revive the stadholderate July 8, and they make Willem III of Orange, 21, stadholder, captain-general, and admiral for life. Authorities arrest Cornelius de Witt, 49, July 24 on charges of conspiring against the prince. Cornelius's brilliant brother Johan, now 46, resigns his position as councillor pensionary August 4 after 19 years as head of state. Cornelius is tortured and sentenced August 19 to banishment after being stripped of his offices. Johan goes to visit Cornelius in the Gevangenpoort at The Hague August 30; a mob gathers outside, breaks in, seizes the two brothers and tears them limb from limb; Willem rewards the instigators of the riot as he summons aid from the elector of Brandenburg to resist the French, whose captain Abraham Duquesne, 62, is deprived of his command following accusations that he refused to follow orders after the Battle of Solebay (and refused to renounce his Calvinist faith, which has prevented him from being made admiral). Duquesne served as an admiral for Sweden's queen Kristina from 1644 to 1647 but returned to France and supported the crown during the Fronde uprising of 1651 to 1653.

Austrian generalissimo Raimondo Montecuccoli is recalled to service at age 63 to lead the imperial Hapsburg armies against the French.

Ottoman forces invade Poland following a series of border raids by Tatars and Cossacks (see 1671). The strategic border fortress Kamieniec Podolski falls to the Turks, whose grand vizier Fazl Ahmed Köprülü forces Poland's Mikhail Wishniowiecki to sign the humiliating Treaty of Buczacz (Buchach), which requires the Poles to cede Podelia and pay an annual tribute of 22,000 gold pieces. The Polish commander-in-chief Jan Sobieski rejects the terms of the October 18 treaty and takes the offensive, beginning a 4-year war over control of the Ukraine (see 1673).

Former Dutch colonial official Peter Stuyvesant dies on his Manhattan farm in February at age 61; New York's first English governor Richard Nicolls is killed May 28 at age 47 fighting the Dutch in the Battle of Solebay.

French courtier Louis de Buade, 50, comte de Palluau et de Frontenac, is appointed governor-general of New France. A veteran of the Thirty Years' War who 4 years ago served briefly as a lieutenant general with Venetian forces defending Crete against the Ottoman Turks, Frontenac was soon dismissed for engaging in an intrigue against his superiors (see exploration, 1673).